BEIJING — A crusading Chinese rights attorney whose disappearance more than a year ago caused an international outcry said Wednesday that he is abandoning his once prominent role as a government critic in hopes he will be allowed to reunite with his family.

In his first interview, since he resurfaced two weeks ago, Gao Zhisheng said he didn’t wish to discuss his disappearance or whether he had been held and mistreated by the authorities. He appeared thinner and more subdued than the pugnacious civil rights of the past, though he said his health was fine.

Nevertheless, Gao said, the ordeal had taken a toll on him and his wife and two children, who fled China early last year to escape relentless harassment by police.

“I don’t have the capacity to persevere. On the one hand, it’s my past experiences. It’s also that these experiences greatly hurt my loved ones. This ultimate choice of mine, after a process of deep and careful thought, is to seek the goal of peace and calm,” said Gao, 44.

His eyes brimmed with tears several times when he discussed his family.

Among the most dauntless of a group of human rights lawyers, Gao was a thorn in the government’s side for much of the past decade. He advocated constitutional reform and took on sensitive cases involving evangelical Christians and members of the banned Falun Gong spiritual group. He was jailed, tortured and watched by police until he went missing 14 months ago. Vague statements from the government as to his whereabouts drew protests by international rights groups, the U.S. and British governments and the U.N.’s torture investigator.

The more than hourlong meeting seemed partly intended to dispel concerns over Gao’s health and state of mind since he disappeared in February 2009. He showed flashes of his previously defiant self, mixing praise for the government’s building of the economy while calling for democracy.